BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY

BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY is a beautifully put together concise documentary about a one-time Hollywood star who felt trapped by her beauty and her reputation and under-appreciated for her intellect.  

Hedy was born in 1914 in Vienna to a middle-class Jewish family, with a beloved father who encouraged her interest in mechanics and invention.  As a teenager she became a beauty, and in decadent pre-anschluss Vienna, she felt free enough to express that in nude photos and a notorious film called Ecstasy, in which she appeared nude and faked an orgasm on screen. All this before she turned twenty. She marries a rich industrialist who happens to be supplying the Nazis with munitions, becomes a bored trophy wife, and escapes to England then America, where she enters another kind of prison, on a contract with Louis B Mayer.  He categorises her according to her reputation for Ecstasy, giving her bad parts that sell her looks but not her acting skills. Despite this she has a few hits, and is widely lauded as a beauty, but it never quite sticks.  She makes a bad second marriage to a philandering screenwriter - the second of many. And by the 1950s is washed up, a single mother, taking bad parts, addicting to the pills MGM gave her to keep her on the treadmill in her popular years. The worst part is that while she spent her entire life trying to be valued for her brains, not her beauty, she too gave into that metric as measure of her worth, indulging in more and more extreme plastic surgery until the results forced her to become a recluse, dying alone, being buried in an unmarked grave in her beloved Vienna.

And so the brains. Hedy had no higher education but had a fascination with science and engineering and a bold willingness to solve problems. During World War Two, she wanted to help the Allies who suffering horrific losses in the Battle of the Atlantic.  And so, with musician George Antheil, she invented a system of radio Frequency Hopping that would allow Allied boats to communicate with torpedoes securely, and to evade German U-boats jamming their communications.  It is appalling that such a revolutionary idea would be filed away by the US Navy.  It's even more appalling that she was condescendingly told to be a good pretty little actress and to sell war bonds by auctioning off kisses. And the final insult was that her patent was seized by the US government because she was an "alien" rather than a patriot, and exploited for military and commercial gain without her seeing a dime. To be clear, the consequences of her invention were immense - it's the concept behind the secure communications in wi-fi and bluetooth! 

There are so many ideas and emotions in this short film that it takes some time to really settle and unpack it all - what it means to have your patriotism questioned as an immigrant - the difficulty of being taken seriously as woman in Hollywood - the emotional damage of a persona - drug abuse. That alone would make it worth watching, apart from the technical skill of assembling some very high quality vintage footage. 

BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY has a running time of 88 minutes. The film is rated 12A for modest sex references and nudity. The film was released in the USA and Spain last year and was released in the UK this weekend in cinemas and on demand.  It will be released in Germany on March 22nd.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - meh

So here's the thing. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is not a disaster. It's quite watchable and occasionally leavened by good performances, both comedic (Christoph Waltz, Brad Pitt) and dramatic (Mélanie Laurent), not to mention beefcake (Til Schweiger). There are flashes of Tarantino craziness (in a superb basement-tavern set-piece for one) but somehow the movie never takes off - never quite convinces us that we are in a surreal alternate place. In a sense, Tarantino is too good. He does what he's never done before - he creates genuinely dramatic, emotional, credible situations of fear and tension. And then he expects us to switch back in Tarantino the Comic Fantasist mode. As a result, when Tarantino does something that really fracks with reality (e.g. the ending) it just feels wrong. Final reaction: flat. Meh. Walk out of the cinema thinking, what just happened here?

Now, down to the nuts and bolts. INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS is really two films. The first is a pretty serious revenge movie. Mélanie Laurent plays a young Jewish woman who has watched her family butchered by Nazis, and is now in a position, as owner of a Parisian cinema, to blow up the entire German High Command at a premiere of some Nazi propoganda. Melanie Laurent is excellent as Shosanna Dreyfuss - just watch her suppress her fear when she realises she is taking coffee with the man who butchered her family. Diane Kruger is also notably convincing as a German film-star who has to charm her way into the premiere in order to disrupt it. The tension when she is being interrogated by the same Nazi officer who terrified Shosanna is palpable. The second movie, which surrounds the first, is a more broadly drawn Tarantino comedy in which a bunch of American Nazi scalp-hunters, led by Brad Pitt, team up with Diane Kruger's German film-star and Michael Fassbinder's British soldier, to also blow-up aforementioned Nazis. The comedy comes from Brad Pitt as a sort of Dirty Dozen war hero and his interactions with the Nazi villain played by Waltz (whose performance unifies the two parts of the film). The comedy does not come from a particularly ill-judged cameo from Mike Myers.

My suspicion is that the movie won't satisfy anyone. Tarantino fans will want more Brad Pitt/Basterds craziness and tire of the Parisian drama. Not to mention the fact that, rather bravely, Tarantino has chosen to be vaguely credible in keeping most of the dialogue in French and German. Indeed, he goes further, with a great running gag about Americans not speaking foreign languages. I just wonder whether that gag will back-fire with his target demographic. The cult-fans looking for kick-ass violence and witty dialigue might also object to the fact that, ultimately, this is not really a movie about France, Nazis, the Holocaust or anything other than Tarantino's abiding love of cinema, and his childlike belief that movies really can change the world.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS played Cannes 2009, where Christoph Waltz won Best Actor, Berlin and Melbourne 2009. It is released next weekend in Belgium, France, the UK, Australia, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, New Zealand, Russia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Austria, Canada, Estonia, Norway, Sweden, Taiwan, the USA and the Netherlands. It is released the following weekend in Iceland, Argentina, the Czech Republic, the Portugal, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Denmark. It opens in September in Finland, Romania, Israel and Spain. It opens in October in Italy, Japan, Singapore, Mexico and Brazil.

ANYTHING FOR HER / POUR ELLE - Angel, Angel, Down We Go Together

French writer-director Fred Cavaye's ANYTHING FOR HER has been much-praised for its original take on the prison-break-out movie. Cavaye doesn't bother teasing the audience with whether or not the young mother is really guilty of murdering her boss - her innocence is established up-front. Nor are there any typical suspicions of infidelity - she and her husband are clearly in love and they have a supportive family. Neither do we have a break-out masterminded by slick, omniscient gangsters. Rather, Cavaye's protagonist is a middle-aged, naive school-teacher, who accepts that his wife is innocent, doesn't think he can prove her innocent, and wants to break her out of prison and escape overseas. The viewer-interest should reside in seeing this ordinary man grapple with the complexity of planning a successful break-out - in other words, one that doesn't involve being caught the next day. Unfortunately, the concept of the movie collapses in on itself. Because, as a seasoned criminal explains to the protagonist early in the film, successful break-outs aren't for amateurs - they need careful planning, a lot of money, and a lot of luck. This leads Cavaye into a screen-writer's quandary. In order to be authentic to his concept, his protagonist but whimper and fail. But, in order to create an action-filled thriller, his protagonist must behave exactly like the trained criminal that he isn't. That Cavaye can't decide is summed up in a pivotal scene where the desperate man holds up a drug-dealer but then rescues the pusher. I felt it neatly summed up the muddled thinking at the centre of this otherwise technically well made, but literally incredible, film. It will be interesting to see what Paul Haggis makes of the paradox in his English-language remake.

POUR ELLE was released in France and Belgium last year. It is currently on release in Sweden, Turkey and the UK. It opens in Finland on July 3rd.

NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS - damp squib

The first NATIONAL TREASURE movie was a light-hearted unpretentious mix of Indiana Jones and The Da Vinci Code and much of the team behind the original is back for the sequel. Nic Cage reprises his role as the archeologist cum treasure hunter, Ben Gates. He's got an IT whizzkid sidekick (Justin Bartha), a hot chick girlfriend (Diane Kruger) and a pair of light relief bickering parents (Jon Voight and Helen Mirren). Instead of Auto-Bean, the bad guy is played by Ed Harris. And instead of Templar treasure, Ben Gates is searching for an ancient City of Gold hidden under Mount Rushmore. The adventure will take him to Paris, Buckingham Palace, the Oval Office and the Library of Congress too! One wonders just what is left for the heavily hinted at third installment of the franchise. Ben Gates decodes a puzzle on the moon?!

The problem is that somewhere between the insanely impressive sets and the ludicrously high-amp locations, the honest fun of the first film got lost. I didn't mind the cheesiness of the first flick because it kept me entertained. In NATIONAL TREASURE, I eventually got bored, especially during the final water sequences. And when you're bored, you start poking holes in a plot that can't stand up to such scrutiny. The motivation of the baddie, for instance, seems pretty thin. And a scene where Ben Gates is offering to sacrifice himself for his family is curiously lacking in emotional punch.

Overall then, NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS is a pretty damp squib. Still, I like the concept enough that I'll be hoping for a slightly shorter run-time and slightly less absurd locations in the inevitable next installment.

NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS was released in 2007 in the US, Kuwait, Oman, South Korea, Taiwan, Australia, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Lebanon, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Thailand, Bulgaria, Canada, Estonia, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Spain, the USA, Venezuela, Egypt, Russia, Mexico and Panama. It was released earlier in 2008 in Belgium, Greece, Iceland, Poland, Turkey, the Philippines, the Netherlands, Peru, Colombia, India, Norway, Sweden, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Germany and Denmark. It is currently playing in Denmark and the UK and opens next week in France and Finland.

GOODBYE BAFANA - earnest but superficial and dull

Much like the insanely over-hyped biopic THE QUEEN, GOODBYE BAFANA attempts to give us intimacy with an icon. Also like THE QUEEN, we are left with a rather plodding, predictable film that would be better suited to day-time TV.

Director Billie August and writer Greg Latter fashion an earnest, plodding friendship story out of James Gregory's autobiography. Gregory was Nelson Mandela's prison guard and was charged with censoring his letters. As the film progresses and the years roll by, Gregory is awakened to the plight of black South Africans, and comes to respect Mandela. Fiennes, Haysbert and Kruger give decent performances as the prison guard, the future president and the prison guard's wife. But the script lacks any innovation. For a start, they might have tried to take a more holistic view of the relationship between the two men - after all, Gregory's memoirs are not uncontroversial.

GOODBYE BAFANA played Berlin 2007 and was released in Spain, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, Kuwait, Turkey, Hungary, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Portugal, Israel, Lebanon, Argentina, Poland and the US earlier this year. It is also available on Region 2 DVD.

COPYING BEETHOVEN - copying AMADEUS more like

COPYING BEETHOVEN is an insulting film on every level. Everything from its very concept to the minutiae of the acting performances offends the viewer. At worst, the writers lift scenes wholesale from the brilliant AMADEUS. The theft is all the more offensive because they have taken a work that is subtle, sophisticated and brilliantly executed and turned it into something crude and, at times, laughable.

The film opens with a young woman in a carriage rushing to the death-bed of a famous composer in Vienna. Not Constanze to Mozart, but a young composition student called Anna Holtz (Diane Kruger) rushing to the bed of Ludwig van Beethoven (Ed Harris.) There are some touching words. Sadly, they do not touch us because we are not yet involved in the story and do not yet empathise with the characters

We then switch back in time. An even younger Anna Holtz is sent to be Beethoven's copyist: to transcribe his hastily written scrawl into clear notation that can then by copied for all the musicians who are about to premiere his ninth symphony. Ed Harris' Beethoven takes on the vulgar mannerisms of Shaffer/Hulce's Mozart - mooning the prudish copyist and farting through her work. Harris' accent is also uneven. Kruger's is merely jarring, as is the entire concept that a young woman would have the liberty to attend a composer alone in his apartment or that she would dare "correct" LVB's work or that he would have her conduct his symphony covertly, but then bring her onto stage! (And no, Kruger is NOT convincing in the pivotal conducting scene.) The whole concept is as laughable as the excruciatingly embarassing "wash me" scene.

As the drama progresses we meet an under-used Matthew Goode as Anna's doting but uncomprehending boyfriend and an under-used Phyllida Law as Anna's Mother Superior aunt. Joe Anderson (BECOMING JANE) over-acts horribly as Beethoven's scrounging but sadly oppressed nephew Karl.

LVB arrogantly proclaims to be the commanded by God to compose, making Anna God's secretary. Anna, suffering from another vicious attack from LVB, questions her relationship with God in a scene that echoes Salieri's conversations in AMADEUS - why have you given me the talent but not the opportunity replaces why have you given me the desire but not the talent. And then, in a final act of "inspiration", writers Christopher Wilkinson and Stephen J Rivele (ALI, NIXON) directly quote the Salieri-Mozart death-bed composition scene. There is even the same use of words: "I have you."

What is left to praise in this wishy-washy vulgar film? Well, in an era of DV cinema, Ashley Rowe's superb cinematography is to be praised, as is Alex Mackie's editing and Paul Ghirardani & Lorand Javor's art direction. But absolutely everything else is a shameless quotation from a far better film.

COPYING BEETHOVEN was released in the US in autumn 2006 and has since been on global release. It is currently on release in Belgium and the UK. It is also available on Region 1 DVD.

JOYEUX NOEL - Eurofromage!

JOYEUX NOEL/MERRY CHRISTMAS is a big fat euro-fromage that shouldn't work but kinda does! It is a movie so over-laden with peace, goodwill and humanity, that any honest god-fearing capitalist should be vomiting as they watch it. That I enjoyed this movie will be an eternal source of shame and dishonour. But I did. I fell for it. Watching those lovely soldiers in World War One uniforms downing their rifles, crossing no man's land and singing carols, as on that famous Christmas in 1914, brought a tear to my eye. However, as we all know, Christmas movies suck, and just to redress the balance, let me list a whole bunch of reasons why any self-respecting cineaste should have been throwing rotten tomatoes at the screen.....

1. We get the Wrong German. British audiences know two German actors on sight - Benno Fuermann - the steroid-induced twat in the Nibelung movie - and Thomas Kretschmann - the gorgeous skipper in King Kong. The hero of JOYEUX NOEL is Benno not Thomas, and that, dear ladies, sucks.

2. The story thread that involved Diane Krueger going to the freakin' front line to sing carols to the troops is so ridiculous that it makes Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo look like a plausible depiction of continental dating. This is not helped by the fact that Krueger and Fuermann, who play opera singers, are the worst lip-synchers in the history of cinema. A generation raised on Madonna is not gonna be convinced.

3. As with all movies financed by EU tax breaks, we have 5% of Barroso's recommeded daily allowance of Euro-propanda. The Germans are OKAY, the French are OKAY, the nasty English are absent, instead we have the Brits own oppressed ethnic minority - the Scots etc.

4. In general, the production values of this movie are piss-poor. I've seen more solid-looking sets on a 1970s episode of Doctor Who. In JOYEUX NOEL we see $22 million thrown at the screen, with barely a decently photographed shot in the entire 100 minutes. I mean, what happened to the cash? Was the executive producer smoking crack?

5. While I applaud the complex web of EU wide tax breaks that allows rich bastards to recycle tax losses by financing duff films, part of me screams at the lack of free market rigour to the whole process. It's not that this film will lose money that bothers me. It's that it was DESIGNED to lose money. After all, how can you hope to cream the US market in a war movie where not only do the Yanks not win, they aren't even in it?

JOYEUX NOEL/MERRY CHRISTMAS is already on release in Europe and the Far East. Somewhat bizarrely, it goes on limited release in the US on the 3rd March 2006.

NATIONAL TREASURE - superior popcorn adventure movie

NATIONAL TREASURE is a whole bunch of harmless fun. Equal parts Indiana Jones movie and Da Vinci Code. The film rollocks along at a lively pace, delivering code-cracking, chase sequences, bad guys (Sean Bean), good guys (Nic Cage), and at a neat-O ending. Sure, it's not a work of art, but it handles itself with charm and aplomb - perfect for your Saturday night disposable date movie.

NATIONAL TREASURE went on global cinematic release in winter 2004 and goes on DVD release today.